Monday, June 1, 2015

The underside of the Beautiful Game

Back to the computer and blogging after a week of talking MuayThai and learning windsurfing. Back to action on problems FIFA is facing. Back to more discussions on the support given to women's sports. Back to reality with a bang then.

This book was in my bag and in my hands anytime I was alone on holiday. It's disturbing, unsettling and in the light of this week's arrests totally on the money.

I love watching soccer but my taste as you can tell from this blog veers towards individual sports. That said, like anyone I can appreciate the beauty in a soaring ball and the control needed to score or even just dribble in a straight line.

These very serious allegations and string of arrests crossing continents must be hard for fans to take. It's one thing to suspect people are less than straight but quite another to see the FBI going in. There are tales of $10m being paid over with claims and counter-claims as to why this was done just to pick one example.

And when you search for the latest stories news-clips going back months appear under certain searches like this CBS report from June 2014

You might well ask what this has to do with women's sports? Well, the self-described 'godfather' of women's football is the newly-reelected Sepp Blatter now in his 17th year as President. The Women's World Cup begins this week in Canada and no doubt many people in now vulnerable-positions are hoping pretty women scoring goals will distract attention from these ugly arrests.

“You can’t look at it and say that he’s done nothing for women’s sports. But I don’t think you should be congratulated or patted on the back for doing the right thing. He has said he is the godfather of the sport, but I think he just sort of allowed it to grow, and it was going to do its own thing anyway."